When I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the yard. What felt like ages ago, I found myself back in my cubbyhole. Mikayla was across the room, smiling through her heart.
That old, stitched blanket was covering my legs, and KeeKee was on my lap. It was the oddest thing that she still had that burn mark on her cheek. Had this all been a dream, or was it real somehow?
I licked my thumb and started to rub, and that’s when I felt the age of the old burn. It hadn’t just happened. It was a scar KeeKee had worn for years. I looked up at Mikayla, and she nodded knowingly. She knew the thoughts running through my mind. She had been reading them all along.
When I looked down at the blanket, that’s when I realized that it had been torn and weathered. Stitches coming undone and colors fading with time. One moment, it felt brand new, and before I knew it, the blanket was showing years of use.
“Well, you did drag it everywhere,” Mikayla said as she pointed to it. “It was eventually going to get old.”
The cigar box was sitting on the chest in front of me. I had no idea what I was going to find inside, but I had held onto this moment long enough. It was time to find out what all this was about.
I pulled it to me and opened the top. The first thing I noticed was a stack of notes. They were little story ideas I had written myself. My mind had been such a creative little writer with adventures of flying to the moon and diving to the depths of the ocean. I climbed everything this world had to offer and visited every land ever drawn on a map.
But what I noticed that brought it all home to me were the clippings from a story about the Whydah Gally shipwreck. When it was found, there were treasures aboard. My heart stopped when I learned about a ring that had an inscription on it that read, “Teye Ba.” It appears that was also the title of a song written by the pirate Black Sam Bellamy.
“Well, what do you know,” I said.
“I know,” Mikayla agreed. “Exciting stuff, huh?”
As I dug further, I found more clippings about musketeers. Not from the fictional story, but actual musketeers, and among them was d’Artagnan, a real historical figure who served King Louis XIV. These clippings had been ripped from pages of magazines and newspapers, collected by a little girl who was trying to make a world all her own.
Through the notes about an archaeologist and a spy, I came across a dozen keys. I picked them up and studied them one by one with a look of confusion that made Mikayla laugh. When I looked at her, she had her mouth covered, but it wasn’t working.
“What are the keys for?” I asked.
“They unlock doors,” she giggled.
“Of course, but why do I have them?”
“At one time, you thought everything was special,” she started. “A button. A piece of string. A pebble you found in the yard. Just about anything. But then, you started to really like keys for some reason.”
I studied her for a moment, “Interesting.”
“But is it, though?” she remarked with a smirk. Her little sense of humor could be sharp at times. Unexpected. But always sharp. “If I remember right, there is one more thing in there.”
I brushed the notes aside. I could come back to them later. I pushed the keys away, and there I found it, a folded piece of paper with the title scribbled in pencil.
Bing, out of tune
Bing, bing, a clash out of tune
But, sweet to my ears
Burned dolls on the floor
Dirty blankets with holes
An old ripped coloring book
And a broken piano
What do I remember first?
There’s so much and it’s not all there
Before my memories fade
Grab it all in and don’t let it go!
It’s a part of you
It makes the you
The who no one knows
They never know
Just you and your broken piano
Pieces of you all over the floor
You want what? There isn’t any more
You didn’t have the life others had
They were getting ahead, and you…
You were playing that broken piano
You were stuck with that broken piano
Dragging it everywhere you go
Won’t even leave it behind once
Won’t let it alone for a minute
It felt like betraying an old friend
If you closed it up and walked away
Because it was there too
Through everything about you
Years later, you’ve grown
It’s still there in your room
Wrap your arms around yourself
And remember the you
The who no one ever knew
No one will ever know
It’s always just me and my broken piano
“This has all been about that broken piano downstairs?” I asked as I wiped a tear from my eye.
“That’s not what any of this has been about at all,” Mikayla replied.
“What’s it about then?” I asked.
She shrugged as if she had something heavy to lay on me but didn’t know how at first, “The kind of kid you were, and yet, you made music anyway.”
She let the thought linger in the air. Then, she looked toward the door, “Look outside.”
I started toward the door of the cubbyhole and then looked back at her, “You’re six, right?”
She was such a big person for a six-year-old. How could she know all these things at such a young age? After climbing through the door and picking myself up, I walked to the window to find them all there. Everyone was in the yard staring up at me like they were waiting for me to appear.
My smile was automatic. My heart felt so full. I opened up the window and yelled, “I’ll be right down.”
Just before I could completely shut the window, I heard Teye Ba, “Not that way, Kissy. Come down the right proper way.”
My heart, beating. A laugh flew out of my face. I looked at the roof outside and remembered. So, I climbed out the window and found the ladder right where I had left it all those years ago. It guided my feet to the ground that wasn’t that far below.
I walked through the yard, and the first to greet me was Gilmer in a leather hat, “Good to see you again, Kissy.”
“That was you?” I asked.
Then, he took off his leather jacket and flipped it around. It became a tuxedo jacket. “Sometimes, I play more than one part.”
“You were the spy, too,” I giggled.
“He definitely can play,” Maggie said, still holding the lantern.
“That was you,” I said as I gave her a hug. How many tears was I going to let go?
“She was more than just a guide,” Bruce nodded as he caught my attention. “She taught me how to cook.”
“As if I would ever make such a foul dish for my girls,” Maggie protested.
“Aye, but you taught me the ingredients,” he exclaimed. “I came up with the recipe.”
“That’s right, dear,” Maggie agreed. “You take all the credit for that one.”
“I’m just along for the ride, I guess,” Johnson’s voice broke through.
“You know you’re my First Mate,” Teye Ba replied. Then, he looked at me and nodded.
This was my time to ask if there ever was one, “Is your name Teye Ba, or did I just give you that name because it was on a ring?”
He smiled and bowed his head with a touch to his hat, “That is between me and the sea.”
He was always so hard to shake for an answer. I admired that, a little bit. At times, though, it could get annoying. What comes after a question should always be an answer.
“That’s right,” Mikayla whispered loud enough for me to hear.
The knights were standing side by side in no particular order. When I looked at them, it wasn’t as if I knew any particular one. They were all just faces in a crowd.
“We are merely extras in a play,” one announced.
“We fill the stage,” another added.
“Watch this,” a third urged. Then, they all started taking off their headgear and their armor. Within a flash, they were all dressed like cowboys.
“But wait! There’s more,” I heard another one say as they all started changing again. This time, they looked like superheroes ready to save the day. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
As I watched in amazement, I suddenly heard a voice come out of nowhere, “Alright, you can stop auditioning.”
He rode up on the back of his horse, the knight who had followed me all along. Hooves clicking rhythmically, almost hypnotic. He climbed off the horse and reached out his hand to mine.
“Dad, you remember Kissy?” Mikayla asked, and suddenly, my mind started racing through a thousand memories until I landed on one in particular.
We played hide and seek! I remember hiding behind the curtains in the living room. Gilmer must have walked by me five or six times. Maggie walked by me, too. But they didn’t notice my silhouette hiding behind a curtain with a huge window behind me? That’s when he came and found me.
“We raised you right, child,” Maggie’s soft tone, comforting my soul.
“It wasn’t easy, though,” Gilmer offered. “We didn’t really know what we were doing ourselves.”
“And you didn’t have anyone to play with,” Maggie added. “You didn’t have other kids around.”
“You don’t need to explain all that to me,” I answered, something nudging me to make them feel better. “You guys did the best you could.”
I looked down, and there she stood looking up at me with her arms wrapped around my leg, “It was fun being your friend. We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?”
I brushed her blonde hair, “Yes, we did. And that’s right, your dad was always with us.”
“I did find you that day,” he answered. “I thought the curtain was a perfect place to hide.”
I looked around the yard, and I could see the river running strong and beautiful. I took in my world full of trees, where I played the hardest. The yard had been made into a thousand roles. It could be an amusement park one minute and completely change into a race track the next.
“I was never bored,” I said as if letting everyone know how much I appreciated them. “I was never alone.”
